Leya Evelyn

It Won't Answer When I Ask It's Name, no.660" x 60"; oil and collage on canvas

Imaginary Friends60" x 72"

artist statement

My paintings explore non-verbal, intuitive means of communicating. The painting method itself — as a ritual of becoming — is the narrative. These mixed media works include collaged images which have been photo-silkscreened onto canvas. Writing, inspired by the photographs, is buried beneath the paint. Together, paint, collage, words, form and texture build up into a density that reveals a deeper, non-literal, experience. As the layers accumulate, imageless forms become the wordless language of emotion. Removed from specific contextual references, these works become a metaphor for the elusiveness of knowledge and experience.

selected biography

Born in Washington, D.C., and educated at Brown and Yale Universities, Leya Evelyn has worked as an abstract painter since her early twenties. Her career in the arts has extended up and down the East Coast into Canada. At Yale, she studied under Josef Albers, concentrating on painting and colour. She moved to rural Nova Scotia, after a twenty-four year residence in New York City. Her paintings are shown by galleries in Halifax, Calgary, Edmonton, San Francisco, New York, Switzerland and Denmark. She teaches workshops and has had a regular part-time faculty appointment at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, teaching painting and drawing at the undergraduate level.